Abstract
Edge computing has gained attention from both academia and industry by pursuing two significant challenges: 1) moving latency critical services closer to the users, 2) saving network bandwidth by aggregating large flows before sending them to the cloud. While the rationale appeared sound at its inception almost a decade ago, several current trends are impacting it. Clouds have spread geographically reducing end-user latency, mobile phones? computing capabilities are improving, and network bandwidth at the core keeps increasing. In this paper, we scrutinize edge computing, examining its outlook and future in the context of these trends. We perform extensive client-to-cloud measurements using RIPE Atlas, and show that latency reduction as motivation for edge is not as persuasive as once believed; for most applications the cloud is already 'close enough' for majority of the world's population. This implies that edge computing may only be applicable for certain application niches, as opposed to a general-purpose solution.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | HotNets'20 |
Subtitle of host publication | The 19th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks |
Editors | Ben Zhao, Heather Zheng |
Publisher | ACM Publishing |
Pages | 182-189 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-1-4503-8145-1 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 3 Nov 2020 |
Event | 19th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks, HotNets 2020 - Online, Chicago, United States Duration: 4 Nov 2020 → 6 Nov 2020 Conference number: 19 |
Conference
Conference | 19th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks, HotNets 2020 |
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Abbreviated title | HotNets 2020 |
Country/Territory | United States |
City | Chicago |
Period | 4/11/20 → 6/11/20 |